“The Risk Of Joy”
LAGRANGE BAPTIST CHURCH
November 25, 2007
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If you have your
Bibles I'd like you to take them please and turn to the Old
Testament Book of Nehemiah.
You can find that in the pew Bibles.
You can find that in your pew
Bible on Page 403 if you like. I thought it
would be fitting on the Sunday after Thanksgiving to preach a sermon
on gluttony. All the
staff is prepared; we have set up confessional stages right down
through here, anybody who would like to be first in line can do
that. I'm not even
finished yet, I've got another meal to eat this afternoon! Now this morning
we're going to look at the risk of Joy in Nehemiah 8, and you might
find it strange to look at it there; I think you'll see why when we
finish. Last week we
looked at Jesus parable of the talents and we learned that we are
responsible before him, that we will give a report to him at the end
of time, but while we are living, there are certain risks
that need to be taken.
That's the word that stuck with me all week.
In Nehemiah they had just finished building a wall under
great duress, terrible conditions and much opposition, but that was
not enough. It was upon
the completion of the wall that they had this revival experience at
the place in the city called The Watergate.
Nehemiah, by God's leadership, knew that completing a
building project was not God's full intent.
It was completing the building project of the hearts of his
people and the corporate nature of his people for a mission he had
for all the earth. And I
think what's appropriate for us today is the issue of risk. Have you taken
the pulse of where we live, where we are, when we are and who we
are? We are one of the
most geographically blessed churches in all of This does lay
groundwork for the church.
We'll see, I don't know if we'll see it today or not, but
later in Nehemiah after this, this people come together in their
unity and their understanding of God's word and they make a
corporate and public commitment to do what God has asked them to do. In January as we
pursue this issue of the church, we'll come together as God leads us
to do it, and we're going to do something that's so old it's new.
We're going to read together a Church Covenant.
Our elders have revived, if you will, the old one.
I have a little book in the file, or a copy of it, it's
actually in the Library's files, a book that this church printed in
1922. I don't think you
were here then, where you?
And it has the Church Covenant and the Church Confession of
Faith in them. We're
going to lift those out of time and make them live again through us.
What Nehemiah has to say about that will help us, particularly
today, but I want you to be ready for that as we move into a new
year so you as an individual and we as a church can say we're ready
to risk. If you are
comfortable in the wrong sense of the word, it will be my sincere
prayer that God makes you terribly uncomfortable.
How can we sit in comfort without striving forward to
improve, without pressing forward to the mark, without forgetting
what lies behind when we have a God like ours who has a plan like
his to see that he uses us to reach the world with the good news of
his son, and he's going to do it through your changed life and mine.
But through the
month of December we'll look at the Christmas Connection; how all
this has to do with Christmas so long ago and you today!
We've got to get Christmas out of the story book and get it
into our hearts so our feet can live it out.
Nehemiah 8:
Let me tell you a couple of things that have happened to get
us to Nehemiah 8. I
already mentioned that they had built a wall around the City of
Neh 8:1
And all the people gathered as one man into the square before
the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of
the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded
Neh 8:2
So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both
men and women and all who could understand what they heard, on the
first day of the seventh month.
Neh 8:3
And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate
from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the
women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people
were attentive to the Book of the Law.
Neh 8:4
And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had
made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah,
Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael,
Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his
left hand.
Neh 8:5
And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for
he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people
stood.
Neh 8:6
And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people
answered, "Amen, Amen," lifting up their hands. And they bowed their
heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.
Neh 8:7
Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai,
Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the
Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people
remained in their places.
Neh 8:8
They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and
they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.
Neh 8:9
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and
scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the
people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or
weep." For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.
Neh 8:10
Then he said to them, "Go
your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to
anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And
do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."
There's the idea
that started the whole thing.
Will you, will I, will we risk for joy to have it and to
share it?
Neh 8:11
So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, "Be quiet, for
this day is holy; do not be grieved."
Neh 8:12
And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to
send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had
understood the words that were declared to them.
Now, in a form,
I'm going to show you the sermon then we're going to walk through it
step-by-step. Slap in
the middle of this passage of scripture the anchor of it all is the
Word of God. We saw that
right up front. The
people had gathered and has one man asked Ezra the scribe, to bring
to them the Book of the Law of God.
Why did they do that?
Psalm 1 tells
us: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the
ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the
scoffer, but his delight is in the Law of the LORD and in his law he
meditates day and night.
He'll be planted like a tree by the streams of water.
His leaf will not wither.
He will bear his fruit in its season and whatever he does
will prosper." They understood
this unique nature of God's Word, so they wanted to be anchored in
that. But there are two
key issues that flow through these scriptures and we'll look at
those in just a minute: The first is unity and the second is
understanding.
Now both of those things, unity among God's people as they gather,
and understanding by God's people of the Word are both
catalysts for and results of corporate worship.
Those are two key issues centered around the Word of God that
we see in this passage of scripture.
And then we're given two things that you and I can do to
cause this unity and this understanding to happen.
We can listen and we can live.
So let's walk through them if we can. The idea of
unity-- if you were to go through this passage of scripture and
take a pen and underline "all the people" or "the people" you would
find it at least 14 times.
Now when something is continually repeated in the scripture
it is telling us that we need to pay a little bit of attention here.
Is that some theological insight?
No, that's a literary insight.
Anytime an author repeats something in a book it tells you
it's important. That's
why unity is one of the key factors here.
This was all of God's people gathered together and unity is
the theme God wants us to pick up from this passage.
But, did you know we have a learned resistance to unity? You
don't ever want to do it your way, do you?
We have a learned resistance to unity.
Actually, this individualism, part of it, not all of it - God
made us individuals, but part of our strive for individualism
is a reflection of this thing called sin that dwells within
us. I'm not talking sins
that you or I do, I'm talking about a nature that we have because
we're sons of Adam and Eve and daughters of Adam and Eve, and we
need something to correct that.
And one of the places that you can learn about this
resistance we have….. My first
pastorate I learned a lot of things, and I learned that Christians
are like Polly Pocket.
How many of you know who Polly Pocket is?
Okay, that dates you just a little bit.
Is she still around?
Do any of you little girls have a Polly Pocket with you this
morning? Anybody got
one? They were great for kids to play with in church - little bitty
tiny things. Christians
are like Polly Pocket.
Now Polly Pocket came in little bitty containers and you open it up,
and she was a little bitty doll about that big.
The trouble with that is they give them to little children
because now I'd have to take these off and put my reading glasses on
to even see what my children were playing with.
Well, they fit in this pocket; she's got this whole little
world; you can close her up; she's got a house, no telling what all
she's got in there; maybe the beach to swim in, and you would carry
them around in your pocket.
Well, I learned in my first pastorate that Christians are
like that because every church has pockets.
Pockets are what separate things.
I've got keys in one pocket, mints in another. My first
church I was educated about how Christian people can be.
I did not know I had pockets in my church.
I thought we were all just one people and I went in and I
found out before too long with the long-range planning committee was
put together that the Chairman of Deacons then belonged to one
pocket and there was another group of people belonging to another
pocket that despised the Chairman of Deacons and what he wanted to
do in the church. Can
you believe that happened in church?
Well, all I did was sit down with him; he suggested names of
people that should be on our long-range planning committee.
I said, Well, that sounds good to me; they're active, they
seem like great people.
I was brand new. I was
28 years old. After the
business meeting that night when they were voted on and approved, I
walked out to my car and got the biggest tongue lashing from two
ladies in the church I had ever received in my life.
"Those are just his puppets! Don't you see what he's trying
to do? Why did you let
him do that?" And I discovered pockets in the church.
We had two major ones in that church; there were more than
that, but one group of people - this pocket decided that we needed
to redecorate and refurbish our old sanctuary.
The other pocket over here didn't really have an agenda -
they just didn't want this pocket of people not to get what they
wanted. So on a business
meeting night, I'm sitting there and I watch the unthinkable happen.
I'm a 28-year-old guy who thinks these are God's people, they
love Jesus, they love each other, they want to reach this community
for Christ and I watched these pocket people, these people brought
up the motions about redecorating the church, and out of the middle
of nowhere, three of the guys had schemed how to throw a roadblock
to redecorating the church.
I wasn't for either one of them.
I was too young and dumb and new to know anything.
They put a motion on the floor to buy a $50,000 bus!
This is 1987.
Because they knew who was going to be at business meeting and they
knew some of the older folks wanted a bus, a certain type of bus, we
as a church voted to buy a $50,000 bus with no plan to pay for it
and no money in the budget for it because we were playing pocket
people. This group
of people didn't like this group of people. It had nothing to
do with the gospel,
nothing to do with the bus, nothing to do with redecorating the
sanctuary; it had to do with individual selfish people. Now, I know
you've never been involved in anything like that, have you?
You've never taken sides once in church, have you?
It's a good thing we didn't get in a fight over the color of
the carpet in this church.
I wanted blue. I
really did! I wanted
blue! Bit my tongue a
thousand times. You
know, churches split over colors of carpet and whether or not you're
going to pad the pews.
You know what that is?
It's not stupid, it's sinful.
These are God's people.
We don't knee to be pocket people; we need to be
unified people in the hands of God.
We do odd…. You know what I've watched church people do? When
you get in a pocket, you know what that does?
That causes you and your pocket to criticize others that are
in a different pocket.
Would you please help me understand what good in any church it ever
does to criticize a fellow member of the Body of Christ?
"Did you see what she wore to church this morning?"
"Can you believe he said that in the pulpit?"
I mean, how many times have you had fried preacher for lunch
on Sunday afternoon after church?
[Laughter]
We just love to criticize don't we?
I'm not pinpointing anybody, I'm as guilty as all of you, but
you know, you get a little heady knowledge as a pastor and you ease
up to that really super spiritual level and man, you can criticize
with Bible words; that's really cool!
Why would we do that?
Well, it's because we have a learned resistance to unity.
But we have a built-in need for unity.
Did you know that?
From day one, before you were ever, ever tainted by any sin,
you have a built-in need for unity?
Did you get here by yourself or did you come here because of
some man and some woman?
Did you raise yourself?
Maybe if you had the most horrible childhood in the world, you still
had someone somewhere along the way feed you and diaper you and do
everything for you because you couldn't do it for yourself.
We were made to need one another.
Have you ever watched a football team gather around a
particular and spectacular leader on the field?
Anybody watch So what is it
that brings unity in the church?
When the church together and each individual sees a person
and a plan bigger than me or my plan, or you and your plan.
What creates pockets is that we see ourselves bigger than God
and bigger than everybody around us.
In other words, we think more of ourselves than we do others.
And then we develop a plan for life and we get committed to
our plan, and so when we're committed to our plan we have to
be noncommitted or against someone else's plan.
But when Christ, the person of Christ is the biggest one in
our mind, then we see his plan, it has a unifying effect on the
church. That's one
thing. The second thing
is understanding.
I don't know why it's missed, but in this passage of scripture, if
you will underline or follow the words understand or
understood you will find it is repeated at least 5 times.
Now, remember what kind of place this was.
All the people were gathered as one; they asked for the Word
of God to be read and taught to them, and the intention of this was
understanding.
Understanding is a priority for worshipping and walking with God.
We must get a grip on the fact that we cannot worship God nor
walk with God without understanding God; who he is, and what he does
and what he wants done.
You can't do anything in life right without the right information.
You can't drive a car, you can't keep a job, you can't hold a
marriage together. What
we do, especially in our faith, is built upon understanding;
however, in religious things we default to feelings.
We default to feelings.
Let me see if I can give you a little bit of an example.
They’ve had the scriptures read; they've had them explained
and Verse 9:
Neh 8:9
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and
scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the
people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or
weep."
Their response
at that time was an emotional response of mourning and weeping
and I'm not saying that response was wrong at that point, but if it
had been left uninformed, it would have continued down the wrong
path. When we are moved
emotionally, we misinterpret that as a spiritual experience.
God wants his people to experience their emotions to the
highest possible level in accordance with the truth they understand.
We should default to understanding.
Why?
Because understanding channels our emotional energies and
responses. Have you ever
been in a tense conversation?
There's a book called, "Crucial Conversations."
It's a great book; it's a secular book, and it talks about
when the stakes are high and it gets emotional, you have entered a
crucial conversation. Do
you talk different in crucial conversations? Sure you do.
Have you ever said anything you wish you hadn't said in a way
you shouldn't have said it in a crucial conversation?
Do you want to know why you did that?
Your emotions were in the driver's seat.
God wants our emotions to be fully experienced in our faith
in Christ, but he does not want them to be in the driver's seat.
These people
were huge in their emotions this day.
They were out loud together saying Amen, they were lifting
their hands, they were bowing their heads in worship.
They were together demonstrating and feeling and they were
weeping and mourning out loud but they needed a little more
understanding to get on the right path.
Emotions are good!
They are a gift of God, but understanding channels those
emotional energies and responses, and remember what the center of
gravity is here that holds our unity and builds our understanding is
the Word of God.
So, how does a church get unified and become a church that seeks
understanding? It's very
important. Do you
realize one of the greatest tools that we will have to tell people
the truth about God's love for them in Christ is our unity.
People are craving community.
They want a place where they can come and be real; not fake.
And some of them see the church as the fakiest place on
earth, and sometimes they are just plain ol' right.
Who of us is worthy to come into God's presence? None!
But who can Christ make worthy to come into God's presence?
As we hear his Word, as we exalt his Son, it brings us to God
and it brings us together because we think more about him, less
about ourselves, and more about one another. And as we understand
that, we know God, we walk with God, we seek to understand ourselves
and the world we live in and we have reason and attraction in
reaching the world. So, how can we
build this? By learning how
to listen. Let's go through this quickly. We see in Verse 1 these words:
Neh 8:1 And
all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water
Gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of
Moses that the LORD had commanded That, my friend,
is hungry. Have you ever asked somebody to come before you and read
out loud to you, Leviticus?
[Laughter] That's what they just asked for.
I have to think that he picked sections of the law to read,
but he read from that law from morning to midday.
The only thing I know that people sit through that long
is The Lord of the Rings Trilogy or a football game that goes
into 4 overtimes.
[Laughter] All morning he read from the Word. They were hungry and
they were unhurried. You
know, to be very honest, I read that and I wondered if God fudged a
little bit. Did they
really do that? Or is
that just in there for effect? Did they really stand there
that long and listen to the Word?
How could that be?
I look at us and our 2-second attention spans and in our
thinking and I'm wondering how could that possibly be?
Have you ever
watched someone else's home movies?
[Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-] I
mean talk about boring.
But have you ever watched home movies when you were the main
character?
[Laughter] Did you see
that? Look at that?
Look at that? I
did this! And the
person's over there going [gag - finger down throat]
These people saw
themselves in God's story because they were God's story.
And what they were reading about was how God started with
Abraham and from him came the patriarchs and then they were taken
through Jacobs family into Egypt and how he drew them out by these
mighty miracles and how he gave them his covenant, and how they
disobeyed and they were reminded of God's graciousness as he brought
them back to the Land and it was like they were seeing home movies
and they, each one, were the key character.
They just stood there and said, "Oh, God, look at what you
did in our lives." They were reviewing what he had done and they saw
the hand of God intimately and powerfully and graciously working
with them, no wonder they could stay there! Do you see
yourself in God's story?
Do you really think God is right there with you and beside you?
If you understood him, you'd know he is!
That's why understanding is important, and the Bible would no
longer be a boring book to you, but it would be your story and when
you read it or heard it read, or heard it taught, you'd say, "Oh,
God, where am I in this story?" They were
unhurried. Verse 3, "And the ears of all the people were attentive to
the Book of the Law."
They were reverent.
That's a good word. It's not a bad word.
We've almost made reverent a curse word.
Listen, you don’t have to be reverent around me.
You really don't even have to be reverent in this building.
But you do need to have a holy fear of God and be reverent
because of Him! If God
can create this world and then send his son for those who rebelled
against him, Wow! You
see when you understand God, you enjoy being reverent before him
because Verse 5 days:
Neh 8:5
And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for
he was above all the people, and as he opened it all the people
stood. They were in awe
of the very Word of God because they saw this as God's speaking
because that's what it was and that's what it still is.
If we don't have the Word of God centering our church, we
can't have unity because there is nothing bigger than us.
We can't have understanding because there's nothing to teach
us. We can't learn to
listen because there is no one to talk to us, and we won't know how
to live because we don’t have any instructions.
This is not some religious relic; this is the living and
active Word of God, and when we understand it, it doesn’t put us on
a high pedestal that makes us arrogant looking down on those who
don't. It humbles
us to make us real so the world then becomes reachable by us. There is one
interesting sidelight on this how to listen.
Look at their worship in Verse 6:
Neh 8:6
And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people
answered, "Amen, Amen," lifting up their hands. And they bowed their
heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. If that happened
in one of our worship services, it would scare most of us to death!
It was a participatory and a demonstrative worship.
That has really got me thinking about how we worship.
Now, just relax.
I'm not going to teach you how to jump pews!
But we are in a pattern of doing things and frankly the
pattern has become more presentative than it has been participatory.
How will the Bible instruct us to become less presentative,
we're not entertainers -
I don't know a person in this church, choir or musician, that
desires to entertain; they want to worship.
But we need to think through putting the Word of God in the
center, how do all of us participate, so that in unison we
might say, "Amen." I'd
probably pass out! We
might lift our hands, not to wave down a 747 or to make a show for
us, we might bow our faces to the ground because we're stunned at
the Word and the work of God.
The second thing
you can do, the first is how to listen, the second is how
to live. This is
where the rubber meets the road for all of us.
You see, unity never happens among a group of people until
the individual is committed to it.
You've got to get out of your pocket and you've got to let
other people live in theirs until God moves their heart to move out
of their pocket and unity happens.
You can't ever pry the pocket open, that's God's job.
How to live? Hmmm… First you have to understand, we've
already learned that. Why?
Understanding has an orienting effect to life.
How you understand life, how you see life is your compass.
It orients you to what direction you're going to go.
Now, let's take a close look, beginning at verse 9 and see
how this strange, this unique power and effect of the Word of God.
Neh 8:9
And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and
scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the
people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or
weep."
Now, I know they
weren't Baptist preachers because if a Baptist preacher can get his
church mournin' and weepin' he knows he's got them in the palm of
his hand. You know what
that's called? That's
called religious manipulation and that is horrible!
These people weren't being manipulated; these people were
being taught and when they understood as they read the Law of God
that the reason they had been in captivity, the reason they had to
rebuild the broken and burned down wall is because they had sinned
against God and they were weeping over that.
Their hearts were broken.
They heard it.
But the teachers came and said, "Wait, stop! This day is holy to the
LORD." Now, I don't know
about you, but I don’t know many believers today that communicate in
their hearts and their minds the word holy and equate that
with rejoicing, but look at this great mixture.
It says:
For all the people wept as they heard the words of
the Law.
Neh 8:10
Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat the fat and drink
sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for
this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of
the LORD is your strength."
Joy is a sign of
holiness because joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Joy is something that would be so attractive among us.
Here is how the Bible gives us orientation to life through
understanding. They
understood part of the law; that they had sinned and God was angry
with them and punished them as he said he would.
But they didn't take in the whole thing.
This mixture of what God did was the minute they understood
what they had done wrong, he sent to them the promise side of his
covenant that if they left him, but returned, he would bring them
from the furthest corners of the earth and bless them! Don't run from
God when you feel weird, convicted, guilty!
Guilt, my friend, is the key that opens the door of grace.
Because until I feel that I don't know I need grace.
But somehow this strange power of the Word of God comes deep
within the soul and gives me a sense deep all the way in my
understanding and emotions that makes me weep, and as soon as I
begin to weep, the understanding of God's Word says, "Don't weep,
rejoice, because though you were wrong, I can make you right."
That's the Gospel!
That's the difference in Christianity and that's how our
understanding gives us an orienting effect.
We get confronted by the Word of God, then we get transformed
by the Word of God so we understand in living and then we share.
Verse 10:
Neh 8:10
Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat the fat and drink
sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready,
That's always the sign of a joyful person… sharing. Understanding has an orienting effect. Sharing has a unifying effect. No wonder they were unified. The third thing
in living is rejoice and that has a contagious effect.
Neh 8:12
And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to
send portions and to make great rejoicing….
Why?
What is the fuel behind this rejoicing?
Because they had understood the words that were declared to
them. When you
understand God's Word, he orients you to life, you begin to share
with others. There is
nothing to do but make great rejoicing and that has a hugely
contagious effect. I want to tell
you something. You
are contagious. What God
wants to know is "What are you spreading?"
Have you ever noticed that when the people you are around get
negative, have problems, and that's all they talk about, you begin
to talk that way? Do you
know in certain corporations when things bad start to happen in
departments before it becomes contagious they'll actually break a
department up so it won't become a disease in the company?
You, my friend, are contagious.
Wouldn't you like to be contagious with joy?
Think about that!
Have you ever been around a joyful person?
Not somebody who is flying off the handle with smiles, saying
"Praise the Lord" all the time, but somebody who is genuinely
joyful! They're
electronic! They're
contagious. They bleed
off onto us and even if we're sad, sometimes we become happy and
we're wondering how'd that happen?
By being joyful. So, will you
risk it? How'd all this
start? Very, very
quickly, I want to show you Nehemiah 1, because it all started with
one guy. He heard the
bad news. He was in
Neh 1:4
As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and
mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God
of heaven.
When you get bad
news, what do you do? He
prayed!
Neh 1:5
And I said, "O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God
who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and
keep his commandments,
He reviewed with
God what he had said. He
called on God in verse 8:
Neh 1:8
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses,
saying, 'If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the
peoples,
Neh 1:9
but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them,
though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from
there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have
chosen, to make my name dwell there.' And listen to
his prayer, Verse 10:
Neh 1:10
They are your servants and
your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your
strong hand.
Wow! It started with one
man who understood what God had done, he brought them out of
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